Well, he said poker was not gambling, trading was. The problem is poker is a skills game. There is no mathematical edge in poker. The only card game that has a statistical edge is black jack. And now dealers don't play through to the end of the deck, so that edge is gone.
In both activities(poker and trading) one is betting on an uncertain outcome. When one speculates there is a percieved edge, with gambling there is not! That's a distinction that I read between speculation and gambling. What you think John?
It's about probabilities. I know that any one trade's outcome is uncertain, but over a large enough set of trades, if one has an edge, that edge should be realized. This is also true of black jack. In fact, Fisher uses the casino analogy to describe ACD in that you want to be the casino owner with a small edge making as many trades as you can. Any one trade is random, but over a large enough trades, the opening ranges are significant. There have been studies done over the years that shows momentum in itself is an edge. The edge being that momentum moves are not random. Of course when to get in and when to get out makes it a skills game just like poker. Paul Tudor Jones has some great quotes about this in which he talks about some of the most successful traders and how their performance over 30 or 40 years cannot be random. If one truly feels that they are making random trades with uncertain outcomes, they probably shouldn't trade. Just being the Dow over the last 100 years has produced about a 7.5% a year annualized return.
Anyone see F today? I was trading a collar on this the first half of the year, (haven't bought puts lately since it didn't make an A down for Dec). Nice relative strength today against the S&P. Collared it because I figured it'd run too much in 2010, and with the dividend to come back thought it might be a nice long term collar trade. I think I'll keep an ACD eye on this come the new year.
very well thanks for asking, hope 2012 is extremely profitable and rewarding for you, keep your nose to the grindstone!!
Wow Mav, it it's great that I have your attention. I know traders do not like to hear that speculation is gambling, it's bruises the ego. Im not quite sure where this conversation started, but yes, the concept behind ACD was fascinating, especially since I did not think to simplify things to that level. The other day you posted the Euro breaking down, and I said I caught that move. In fact I will tell that I will catch every move of the Euro you post, because of the nature of RCG itself. It helped me to perceive, and remember, that time is paramount. As far as determining how much time is paramount is what strengthened my signal generator. ACD is wonderful, Fisher writing a book on it is excellent, but trading is gambling as Fish stated himself. You do not know the outcome. The process itself is the edge. And I will prove that to you by allowing you to continue to post Euro updates and by me continuing to catch every single major move. We have completely different methods of anchoring our point A's and C's.
Again, the process Mav. Most people cannot follow process. The edge is actually inside the traders head. Know where you going to get out, and do not deviate from it for any reason. A trader will win once they learn this. Most traders hit a rough patch and then start tinkering. Do you not remember the story of the trader whose rough patch happened right away. Fish knew this young man had the correct MINDSET tho, so he knew he would be fine, and of course, he was. He was one of the few people who can. To strengthen this. Fish says that he had taught 4000 traders ACD. Of that, half of them went to sleep. The other half could not follow process. Process, John, process.
Ron, it doesn't bruise my ego. I have been doing this for a living for 15 years in both New York and Chicago. I take this profession pretty seriously and it's probably why I have been successful at it. I guess if everything in life is a gamble then why not trading. You can call it whatever you want. For those of us that make a living doing it, we call it our profession. If you have an edge and place enough trades, the probabilities will work in your favor. I highly doubt you catch "every" move. I catch maybe 5% of the moves and make a good living doing this. I never think of trading as "catching big moves". I'm not sure what that is. I trade for money. I try to make money every single month and every single year. It's boring, tedious, non sexy, but profitable. But then again, I'm more of a market neutral trader so I'm just looking for edge. Ron, if you ever come to Chicago sometime, I'll show you some guys that make money every single day, day in and day out. It's amazing what people are doing when you see what trading really is. "Not catching moves", but trading. We work really hard at it. I put in 60 to 70 hours a week. Most trading operations here in the city run 24/7 around the clock 252 trading days a year. It's a business to us Ron, and it works.
No, using ACD actually STRENGTHENS this type of trading. And Shan, speaking of perceived edges, is blackjack gambling?